Several diaries and journals of travel have come down to us from the Kamakura period. The Izayoi no Ki is the best known of these. It was written by a lady called Abutsu, a name which indicates that she had taken Buddhist vows. She was a descendant of one of the Mikados, and the widow of a son of the Fujiwara no Sadaiye who edited the Hiakunin-is-shiu. The diary was composed on a journey which she took to Kamakura in 1277 to obtain justice for her son Tamesuke against an elder brother by a different mother, who had usurped one of the family estates.
The Izayoi no Ki is a highly sentimental journey interspersed plentifully with Tanka. The following short passage may suffice as a specimen:—
"26th day. We crossed a river, which I believe is called the Warashina, and proceeded to the shore of Okitsu. I remembered the poem which says, 'the moonshine behind me as I took my way with tears.' At the place where we made our mid-day halt there was a queer little pillow of boxwood. I lay down quite exhausted, and finding an ink-stone there, wrote, as I lay, the following on the paper slides close to my pillow:—
'Twas an experience
Scarce worth remembering.
Tell it not to the world,
O thou chance pillow!
Nor say that I have bound myself."
Musubi-okitsu, which means "to bind oneself down," also contains the name of the place where the author was stopping. The verse is obviously composed simply for the sake of this pun, and contains no record of any actual personal experience.
